Biofuels are an important part of the fuel strategy for the world, but biofuels are more expensive to produce than traditional petroleum fuels. One way to make biofuel processing more efficient is to make the plants do some of the work by engineering them to produce bioproducts as they grow. Producing the bioproduct inside the plant helps to reduce costs. One thing is unclear, however. Scientists weren’t sure how many plants are needed to make the process cost-effective.
Researchers from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have finally been able to define the amount of plant matter required to make biofuel efficiently. Their research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To begin, the scientists gathered information on a group of bioproducts that plants already produce well and then figured out a way to extract these bioproducts in an ethanol biorefinery. In a refinery, the bioproducts can be extracted from the plants and the remaining plant material is converted into ethanol. They concluded that just five commercial-scale refineries could support the projected 2025 demand for biofuel. Scown says that it’s important to engineer several crops that produce different products to keep the industry diversified.
According to co-study leader Corinne Scown, “The researchers in our Feedstocks Division were surprised by how modest the target levels were. The levels we need to accumulate in plants to offset the cost of bioproduct recovery and drive down the price of biofuels are well within reach." The study results show that it is possible to make the production of biofuels economically feasible.
Director of Plant Biosystems Design at JBEI, Dr. Patrick Shih, says, “I think this research is just the first step to demonstrating the future potential of engineered bioenergy feedstock crops. I would imagine that our findings will help motivate future efforts to make biofuels economically viable."